Penis-Snatching Panics Resurface in Africa

Below:

Next story in Science

In a recent issue of "Pacific Standard" magazine, Louisa Lombard,
an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley,
described visiting a small town in the Central African Republic
where she encountered two men who claimed that their penises had
been stolen.

It seems that the day before, a traveler visiting the town had
shaken hands with a tea vendor who immediately claimed he felt a
shock and sensed that his
penis had shrunk. He cried out in alarm, gathering a crowd,
and a second man then said it also happened to him.

This is not the setup to a joke; it is a real psychological
disorder called koro in which victims (mostly men, but
sometimes women) come to believe that their genitals are
shrinking or retracting into the body. The concern is not only
for their sexuality, but also for their lives, since they believe
that the condition may be life threatening if not reversed. In
order to prevent further shrinkage, victims have been known to
securely tie their penises with string or metal clamps — even
sometimes having family members hold it in relays until treatment
can be sought, usually from shamen or traditional healers.

"In recent years, news media in several West African countries
have reported periodic episodes of 'panic' in which men and women
are beaten, sometimes to death, after being accused of causing
penises, breasts, and vaginas to shrink or disappear," wrote
Vivian Dzokoto and Glenn Adams in a study published in 2005 in
the journal Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. "At least 56
separate cases of genital shrinking, disappearance, and snatching
have been reported in the last seven years [1998-2005] by news
media of seven West African countries."

Victims of koro usually believe that a touch or "accidental"
brush with a stranger caused the theft, in the same way that a
pickpocket might steal a wallet.Dzokotoand Adams give one example
of a 17-year-old man in Ghana who "claimed that he had gone to
fetch water for his father and was returning when [the
perpetrator] came behind him, touched him and immediately he felt
his penis shrink until it was no longer visible."

Koro can be understood in a variety of ways; from a psychological
perspective it can be seen as an example of
mass hysteria or delusion, in which a collective cultural
belief can be manifested in one person's experience — whether
objectively "real" or not.

"Victims of genitalia-shrinking panics recover within hours or
days after being convinced that the 'illness' is over or never
existed, and most clearly lack any psychosexual problems," write
sociologist Robert Bartholomew and myself, in the book "Hoaxes,
Myths, and Mania: Why We Need Critical Thinking" (Prometheus
Books, 2003).

"Penis-shrinking panics are a timely reminder that no one is
immune from mass delusions and that the influence of culture and
society on individual behavior is far greater than most of us
would like to admit. Yet the main reason for the absence of
penis-shrinking epidemics in Western societies is their
incredible nature ... but any delusion is possible if the false
belief underlying it is plausible." [ Americans'
Belief in Paranormal Phenomena (Infographic) ]

In this case the delusion is made possible by the underlying
belief in witchcraft, or black magic. A 2010 Gallup poll
found that
belief in magic is widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa,
with over half of respondents saying they personally believe in
witchcraft. Studies in 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa show
belief varies widely, but on average 55 percent of people polled
believe in witchcraft.Because most Westerners do not believe in
magic — or at least not in the variety that has the potential to
shrink or steal someone's genitals — there is no underlying
belief system that would make koro plausible and thus no one
reports it.

No one has ever died from koro, at least not directly. Belief in
koro can have deadly consequences: hundreds of people have been
accused of stealing (or shrinking) other people's genitals, and
dozens have been killed for the accusations. In many cases koro
"victims" have shouted and asked bystanders to help apprehend the
penis thief, whereupon the accused people — often as surprised as
everyone else and protesting their innocence — have been lynched
on the spot by street mobs, much the way an accused mugger or
rapist might be set upon by "street justice."

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer"
science magazine and author of six books, including "Media
Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead
Us." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.